KNOX AS LEADER OF OUR REFORMATION.
As stated towards the close of my last lecture, the sword-bearer of
Wishart stood forth at once "to wield the spiritual sword which had
fallen from the master's grasp, and to wield it with a vigour and
trenchant execution superior even to his."
At this time Knox was full forty years of age, having been born at
Giffordgate, in Haddington, in 1505. He probably received the rudiments
of his education there, and matriculated at the University of Glasgow in
1522. Some suppose that he may have followed Major to St Andrews in
1523, or may have come there later, to study theology or to act as a
private tutor to some young men studying at that university. But there
is no reference to him in the university books, nor mention of his
presence by any one then resident. From 1522 up to 1545-46, when he
appears as sword-bearer to Wishart, his life is to us almost a blank.
But as Minerva was said to have come full armed from the brain of
Jupiter, so did Knox then start up as leader of our Reformation, fully
equipped and singularly matured. Whatever his early training may have
been, he had by that time thoroughly mastered the subjects in
controversy between the two churches, and possibly, as Bayle supposes,
had made himself aquainted in his retirement with the writings of that
great doctor of the western church to whom Luther, Calvin, and Alesius
were largely indebted. I believe no man in recent times has in brief
space sketched his character, both on its brighter and darker sides,
with less partisan feeling than Dr Merle D'Aubigné, when he says: "The
blood of warriors ran in the veins of the man who was to become one of
the most intrepid champions of Christ's army.... He was active, bold,
thoroughly upright and perfectly honest, diligent in his duties, and
full of heartiness for his comrades. But he had in him also a firmness
which came near to obstinacy, an independence which was very much like
pride, a melancholy which bordered on prostration, a sternness which
some took for insensibility, and a passionate force sometimes mistakenly
attributed to a vindictive temper."[82] According to Calderwood, he
received his first "taste of the truthe" from the preaching of his
fellow-countryman, Thomas Guilliame or Williams, a black friar, who in
1543 became one of the chaplains of the regent, and shortly after,
being inhibited to preach, retired into England.[83] The good seed sown
by him was watered by Wishart, and grew up apace, "first the blade, then
the ear, after that the full corn in the ear."
[Sidenote: Tragedy of the Cardinal.]
On 29th May 1546, while the applause of priests and friars was still
ringing in his ears, and he was proudly congratulating himself on the
progress of his new fortifications, and the success of all his measures
to secure the triumph of his party and his own complete personal
ascendancy, the cardinal was suddenly surprised by conspirators in his
stronghold, and cut off by "a fate as tragical and ignominious" as
almost "any that has ever been recorded in the long catalogue of human
crimes."[84] Only the deep feeling of relief thus given from merciless
oppression could prompt or excuse the lines of Sir David Lindsay--
"As for the Cardinal, I grant
He was a man we weill culd want,
And we'll forget him sune;
But yet I think the sooth to say,
Although the loon is weill away,
The deed was foully dune."[85]
When it became known that the conspirators who assassinated Betoun
meant to hold the castle of St Andrews, they were joined by a
considerable number of their friends from among the reforming gentry of
Fife, and gradually by others from a greater distance who were friendly
to the Reformation and the English alliance, and in consequence were
then being subjected to many annoyances at the hands of the regent and
his new following. Among these last, about Pasche 1547--in charge of his
pupils, the sons of certain lairds in East Lothian--came John Knox,
whose life, ever since he had cast in his lot with Wishart, had been
made so miserable to him by the regent's bastard brother[86]--the
aspirant to the vacant archbishopric--that, but for this refuge
unexpectedly opened to him, he would have found it necessary to leave
his native land and follow Alesius, Fyfe, and others to Germany or
Switzerland. At the time when he arrived in St Andrews there was a truce
between the regent and the occupants of the castle, and with the latter
the inhabitants of the city had pretty free intercourse. The reforming
citizens resorted at times to the services in the chapel of the castle;
and John Rough, the chaplain of the garrison, under the powerful
protection he enjoyed, occasionally forced his way into the parish
church and preached there to the assembled citizens.
[Sidenote: His Call to the Ministry.]
Knox was no sooner settled in St Andrews than he resumed the system he
had followed with good effect in East Lothian, causing his pupils to
give account of their catechism in public to all who chose to come, and
opening up in a plain and colloquial manner the Gospel of St John. His
great ability and success as a teacher, and his wonderful gift of
persuasive speech, thus became generally known. After private but
unsuccessful efforts had been made by Balnaves and others to induce him
to become colleague to John Rough, a formal call to the ministry was,
with the counsel of Sir David Lindsay,[87] publicly addressed to him
from the pulpit by Rough, in the name of the rest, and he was solemnly
adjured not to despise the voice of God speaking to him. Thus honourably
called to assume the office of a public preacher in that reformed
congregation, he at last entered on the work with all his heart, and
made full proof of his ministry before the assembled citizens in their
parish church, as well as before the rude garrison in the castle
chapel. He administered the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the simple
form he always used, and continued the public catechising of his pupils,
which the people of the town heard repeated till they had the substance
of his teaching by heart, and thus was spread a knowledge of Gospel
truth even among those who could not read. A very graphic account is
given in his History of the sermons, catechisings, and disputations he
held with the popish champions, by means of which the new doctrines
gained a hold on the minds of the citizens of St Andrews which they
never wholly lost. But times of trial were to come ere the cause should
finally triumph in that city, or in his native land; and the earnest
preacher, whose mouth God had opened in that old parish church, was to
be taught by sad experience how hard it is to leave all and simply
follow Christ, ere he was to be privileged to see the full fruit of his
labours.
[Sidenote: A Galley-slave.]
Those who had presumed to take into their hands "the sword of God" as
they called it, and to mete out to the tyrant cardinal the punishment
which human justice was too weak to award, were made to feel that they
who take the sword must expect to suffer from the sword. They had been
able to withstand the power of the regent and the attacks of his
unskilful captains; but help and skill at last came to the aid of these
from their co-religionists abroad--chief among them being a militant
ecclesiastic entitled Prior of Capua--and the succour promised to the
garrison by England having been again and again delayed, they were
obliged to surrender the castle to the representative of the French
king.[88] The occupants of the castle--those who had come to it for
shelter, as well as those who were really guilty of the murder--were
deprived of liberty, and dealt with as criminals of the worst class. For
nineteen months[89] our reformer had to work as a chained slave on board
the French galleys, generally at Rouen or Dieppe, though sometimes a
cruise was taken to more distant waters. Once, at least, he was brought
within sight of the towers of the city where he had begun his ministry;
and then he solemnly affirmed that he believed God would once more allow
him to proclaim His word there. Even then he maintained unshaken faith
in God, and at times indulged in sallies of pleasantry against his
popish custodiers; but he would have been more than human if the iron
had not entered into his soul, and if traces of the sternness thence
arising had not long been visible in his character.
[Sidenote: His Work in England.]
Early in 1549 he was, by English influence, released from his captivity
in the French galleys, and from his exile.[90] He proceeded first to
London, and thereafter to Berwick, with the approval of the English
Privy Council. There he was as near to his persecuted fellow-countrymen
as it was safe for him to go, and there many of them might resort to
him; and in fact so many did so, that the president of the English
Northern Council became anxious for his transference farther south.
There also, through the appointment of the Privy Council, a wide field
of usefulness was opened to him among the English. Into this he entered
with his whole soul, preaching the Gospel with great boldness and
success not only to the garrison and citizens of Berwick, but also in
the surrounding districts; and proving himself a true successor of those
early Scottish missionaries who had originally won over to the Christian
faith the heathen Saxons of Northumbria. At Newcastle, in 1550, he
discussed, before Tonstal, Bishop of Durham, his doctors, and the
Northern Council, the idolatry of the mass; and in the spring of 1551 he
removed his headquarters to that more central and influential town,
extending his labours at times, no doubt, into Yorkshire, as well as
into Northumberland and Cumberland.
His fame as an eloquent preacher, and able and ready defender of the
doctrines of the Reformation, spread southwards; and at the close of
1551, or early in 1552, he was appointed one of the royal chaplains of
Edward VI. In the autumn of 1552 he was summoned to the south, and
preached with great power and faithfulness before the king and his
court. He persistently advocated, along with the other royal chaplains,
those thoroughgoing Protestant doctrines which, in the north, he had
previously held and taught and carried out in practice. In conjunction
with the other five royal chaplains, he was called to give his opinion
of the Articles then proposed to be adopted as the creed of the English
Church, and of the revised Communion Office then prepared to take the
place of that of 1549. His objections to the act of kneeling in
receiving the elements in the Lord's Supper helped to procure the
insertion of that rubric which high-churchmen term "the black rubric."
He refused both an English bishopric and a London rectory, and continued
to labour on, faithfully and devotedly, as a preacher unattached. He
had a presentiment that the time he would have to do so would be brief,
and he improved it to the uttermost. The Reformation in England at that
date had been forced on by its courtly patrons and their earnest
preachers beyond what was warranted by the hold it had as yet gained on
the mass of the people. When the good King Edward[91] was succeeded by
the bigoted Mary, nothing remained for the Protestant bishops and
preachers but either to prove the sincerity of their convictions in
prison and at the stake, or to leave the country and reserve themselves
in exile for happier times. Knox, as a foreigner, was especially
warranted to choose the latter course; and at the urgent request of his
friends in the north he did so, when it was only not yet too late to
escape.
[Sidenote: Visits Scotland.]
The five years of the reformer's life which followed were not less
eventful for himself nor for those of whom he now became the chosen
leader. After an unsuccessful attempt to set up a substantially Puritan
church among the English exiles at Frankfort, Whittingham and he
obtained at Geneva, through the favour of Calvin, an asylum for
themselves and their like-minded fellow-exiles, where they might be
allowed peacefully to carry out their own forms of worship and
discipline. But he had not been long there till, at the earnest
invitation of the reforming party, he paid a visit to his native land--a
visit which was memorable for its immediate, and still more for its
ultimate, results. For several years the cause of the Reformation had
been making quiet progress. Those who could read the Scriptures had been
drinking the waters of life from the fountain-head. Those who could not,
drank from the streams opened by the Reformation poets, whose verses
were carefully committed to memory. Then came the voice of the living
preacher, accompanied, as it had never yet been in Scotland, with the
demonstration of the Spirit and with power from on high. The reformer
wrote that he would be content to sing his _nunc dimittis_ after forty
such days as he had had three of in Edinburgh. He prolonged for six
months a visit which he had intended to complete in as many weeks; and,
when he was at last recalled to Geneva by the urgent letters of the
congregation there, he promised to his friends in Scotland that he would
return whenever they saw meet to summon him and to assure him of
protection from persecution.
The few quiet years which Knox and his fellow-exiles passed at Geneva
were to be richly blessed to themselves and to their fatherland. He, at
least, had not gone there to have his views of Christian doctrine or
church order formed or materially changed. He went to see the pure
reformed faith (which he and Calvin in common believed, and
independently had drawn from the Holy Scriptures and from the writings
of the great doctor of the ancient church) exhibiting its benign
influence in quickening to higher life, and moulding into a united
community the volatile citizens of Geneva. He came to have his wearied
spirit revived and refreshed by communion with devoted Christian
brethren; and, by witnessing the success of their labours, to be nerved
for further achievements in the service of their common Lord and for the
good of his native land.
[Sidenote: Genevan Benefits.]
It was there that Puritanism was organised as a distinct school, if not
also as a distinct party, in the church. If it had done nothing more
than what it was honoured to do in the few peaceful years our fathers
were permitted to spend in that much loved city by the bright blue
waters of the Leman Lake, it would have done not a little for which the
church and the world would have had cause to be grateful to it still.
There were first clearly proclaimed in our native language those
principles of constitutional government, and the limited authority of
the "upper powers," which are now universally accepted by the
Anglo-Saxon race. There was first deliberately adopted and resolutely
put in practice among British Christians a form of church constitution
which eliminated sacerdotalism, and taught the members of the church
their true dignity and responsibility as priests to God and witnesses
for Christ in the world. There was first used that Book of Common Order
which was long to be the directory for public worship in the fully
reformed Church of Scotland, and whose simple rites Bishop Grindal was
forced to own, in his controversy with the English Puritans, he could
not reprove. There was nearly completed, after the model of the French
version, the English Metrical Psalter. There was planned and executed a
translation of the Scriptures into our mother tongue, which for nearly
half a century continued to hold its place alongside of others executed
at greater leisure and more favoured by authority.[92] That was how our
reformer and his tireless associates occupied themselves when left
freely to follow their own bent. That was how he was ultimately prepared
for the great work he was to accomplish in his native country when
finally invited to return to it.
Immediately after the accession of Elizabeth to the English throne in
the autumn of 1558,[93] the English exiles on the Continent began to
break up their congregations and return to their native land. Those at
Geneva were among the first who commenced to do so; but those of them
who had been occupying themselves in that translation of the Bible into
English which was to prove such a blessing to their countrymen decided
to remain where they were until they had finished that work.[94] Those
who returned were at first favourably received by the queen and her
advisers, and taken into service in the reconstituted church; but when
it was found that they were generally averse to comply fully with the
ceremonies which she fostered, a change took place.
[Sidenote: Returns to Scotland.]
Knox, who does not seem to have been one of the translators, appears to
have left Geneva among the earliest. In February 1558-59 we find that he
had gone to Dieppe, whence, while assisting in the French Protestant
services, he sent a request to Cecil for leave to pass through England
on his way to Scotland, and to converse with him on some matters which
deeply concerned the welfare of the Protestants in both realms.[95] But
his 'First Blast of the Trumpet' was an insult which Elizabeth could not
brook, and so, after waiting in vain for the desired permission for a
reasonable time, he set sail from Dieppe for Scotland, and arrived in
Edinburgh on the 2nd of May 1559, much to the consternation of the
popish council then assembled in the city. It dissolved forthwith; but
care was taken to get Knox's name, as that of an already condemned
heretic, added to the list of Protestant preachers then under summons to
appear before the queen regent and her council to answer for their
persistence in preaching.[96] Knox at once resolved to throw in his lot
with his brethren, and went north to Dundee where the zealous
Protestants of Fife, Angus, and Mearns were already assembling,
determined to make common cause with their preachers, and to go forward
in peaceful form to Stirling in order that they might do so, and leave
the queen and her council in no doubt as to the position which they were
henceforth to occupy towards her and them. They accordingly marched
forward from Dundee to Perth, and sent on Erskine of Dun to Stirling to
apprise the queen and council of their attitude and intentions. It is
said that she promised Erskine that the prosecution of the preachers
would be abandoned, but they were condemned in absence and outlawed, and
the breach between the two parties thus became irrevocable. Nothing
remained for the queen, from her point of view, but to prosecute the
matter to the bitter end, if thereby she might succeed in silencing and
repressing the Protestants.
[Sidenote: Preaches in St Andrews.]
After the regent's falsehood to Erskine and persistence in her fatal
policy, the reformers proceeded at once to set about such reform as they
desired, and commenced rather roughly at Perth, where they had the
majority of the population in their favour. Knox, along with Moray,
went to Fife as soon after as it became apparent that forcible measures
must be taken to secure toleration for the Protestants. After a few
brief visits to other towns he presented himself at the public
preaching-place in St Andrews. Modern historians will not allow us to
say that it was in that city that he had received his university
training, or had first listened to the preaching of the reformed
doctrines, or been brought to a personal knowledge of the truth; but
they leave untouched, as previously stated, the more important facts
that it was there, when in charge of his pupils at the university, that
he had first ventured at the hazard of his life openly to make known to
others that which had been blessed of God to the quickening of his own
soul, and publicly to exert in the cause of the Reformation those rare
gifts of telling argument and persuasive speech which were destined so
signally to contribute to its ultimate and permanent triumph throughout
the land. It was there, probably in the old parish church, that he had
been first solemnly called to the ministry of the Word in the reformed
church; and there, in the chapel of the old and now ruined castle, that
he had first celebrated the Lord's Supper with the same purity and
simplicity with which it was afterwards observed in the fully reformed
Church of Scotland.[97] Even in exile and working as a slave in the
galleys his heart had turned with special pleasure to the scene of his
first labours, and he had cherished the confident expectation that God
would again bring him to the place where he had first opened his mouth,
and permit him again to preach from its pulpit the precious truths of
His Holy Word.[98]
[Sidenote: The Victory.]
This expectation he believed that God had then fulfilled, and neither
the threats of adversaries could make him quail from his purpose, nor
the counsels of timid friends move him to let slip the opportunity which
he believed God had then given him of bearing full and faithful
testimony to the truth of God in that important city.[99] He therefore
boldly proclaimed before the dignitaries of the church, the doctors of
the university,[100] and the magistrates of the burgh, as well as
before more humble citizens, that doctrine of the grace of God which had
long been his own solace and support, and was then being more generally
recognised and embraced by his countrymen. Having thus seized the
opportunity and improved it to the utmost, his efforts were so
abundantly blessed by God that the cause of truth and right finally
triumphed there. The reformed worship was by general consent peaceably
set up, and the authority of the archbishop was virtually ended in the
very stronghold of his power. That which, with the divine blessing, the
reformer's preaching then accomplished in St Andrews, was by the same or
similar means effected in the chief cities of the kingdom, and
throughout the greater part of the lowlands, almost within the compass
of a single year. In fact, four months after his arrival, he could write
to his friends: "Nothwithstanding the fevers have vexed me, ... yitt
have I travelled through the most part of this realme where (all praise
be to His blessed Majestie) men of all sorts and conditiouns embrace the
Truthe.... We doe nothing but goe about Jericho, blowing with trumpets
as God giveth strenth, hoping [for the] victorie by His power
alone."[101] The reformer's expectation of victory, and of victory by
the persuasive means which Bishop Hooper affirmed were alone legitimate
and in accord with Christ's will, was neither disappointed nor long
deferred. The great body of the nation, with unexampled rapidity and
unanimity, embraced the truth, and submitted to the discipline of their
teacher, and under its salutary influence, as Stähelin in his 'Johannes
Calvin' affirms, from being one of the rudest, most ignorant, indigent,
and turbulent peoples, grew to be one of the most civilised, educated,
prosperous, and upright which our family of nations can show.
Believing that we have no cause to be ashamed of the great revolution
which was thus effected, or of aught which has legitimately followed
from it, but that we need to have our pure minds stirred up by way of
remembrance of the great things the Lord has done for us, I proceed to
direct attention to the distinctive characteristics of the Scottish
Reformation in respect of doctrine, worship, government, discipline, and
church life, and the lessons which such a review should tend to rivet on
the hearts of those who still hold fast its principles and long to see
them more fully carried out.
FOOTNOTES:
[82] D'Aubigné's Reformation in the Time of Calvin, vi. 17.
[83] Calderwood's History, i. 155, 156, 160; Laing's Knox, i. 95, 96,
105. [Calderwood says that Williams was born "beside Elstonefurde, in
East Lothiane."]
[84] Lorimer's Scottish Reformation, pp. 155, 156.
[85] [Though these lines are continually attributed to Lindsay, I do not
remember to have ever seen them in any edition of his works, or quoted
as his by any earlier writer than Wodrow.]
[86] [According to Knox, though "called bastard brother to the
governour," many deemed him to be a son of "the old Bischope of
Dunkelden, called Crychtoun" (Laing's Knox, i. 105). Buchanan says he
was "first callid _Cuningham_, estemit _Cowane_, and at last Abbot
_Hamiltoun_" (Admonition to the trew Lordis). In a transcript used by
Ruddiman, _Givane_ occurs instead of _Cowane_.]
[87] [Laing's Knox, i. 186. Though the Lyon King was then in St Andrews,
he was not one of those who were sheltering in the castle (Laing's
Lindsay's Poetical Works, 1879, vol. i. pp. xxxix, xli).]
[88] [Knox says that the castle was rendered "upone Setterday, the last
of Julij" (Laing's Knox, i. 205); Bishop Lesley says "the xxix of Julij"
(Lesley's History, 1830, p. 195). In 1547, the last of July fell not on
Saturday but on Sabbath.]
[89] Laing's Knox, vi. 104.
[90] [The negotiations for the release of the captives seem to have
dragged their weary length along very slowly. So early as the 29th of
March 1548, Huntly wrote thus to Somerset: "The governor has agreed to
exchange the men in the castle of St Andrews with Scots prisoners
conform to your desire, and has sent me commission therein, as I shall
show you at my coming to London: or if you send your mind to my Lord
Warden, I shall appoint with him. The governor has written to the king
of France to send the men taken in St Andrews to Rouen, to be ready for
the exchange" (Bain's Calendar, 1543-67, p. 104).]
[91] [Edward died July 6, 1553.]
[92] [The first edition of the Genevan version was printed at Geneva by
Rouland Hall in 1560. "The changes made in the Geneva Bible were the
adoption of Roman type instead of the black letter, in which all English
Bibles had previously been printed, and the division of the chapters
into verses. These changes were the principal cause of the wonderful
popularity of this version, of which about 200 editions are known. From
1560 to 1616 no year passed without one or more editions issuing from
the press, in folio, quarto, or octavo. In 1599 no less than ten
distinct editions were printed, each of which consisted of a large
number of copies. The last quarto printed in England is dated 1615, and
the last folio 1616. After this time a great many editions were printed
at Amsterdam by Joost Broerss and other Dutch printers; the last folio
bears the imprint of Thomas Stafford, and the date 1644.... 150,000
copies were imported from Holland after this version had ceased to be
printed in England.... Owing to the vast number of copies in circulation
during the three-quarters of a century that this version was the
household Bible of England, it is now the most common of all early
printed Bibles.... The singular rendering of the 7th verse of the third
chapter of Genesis in every edition of the Genevan version has caused it
to be commonly known as the 'Breeches' Bible" (Dore's Old Bibles, 1888,
pp. 203, 204).]
[93] [Mary Tudor died on the 17th of November 1558.]
[94] Troubles at Frankfort, Petheram's reprint, pp. cxci, cxcii.
[95] [After making two requests by messengers, Knox wrote to Cecil from
Dieppe on the 10th of April 1559, and on the 22nd sent from the same
town a duplicate of that letter with a postscript added (Laing's Knox,
ii. 15-22, vi. 15-21).]
[96] [The Provincial Council is said to have closed on the 10th of April
(Robertson's Concilia Scotiæ, ii. 151, 176; Lesley's History, p. 271);
but Knox says that it sat until he arrived in Scotland (Laing's Knox, i.
291); and that the date of his arrival was the 2nd of May (Ibid., i.
318, vi. 21); and an anonymous writer alleges that the council broke up
when assured that Knox had come (Wodrow Miscellany, pp. 56, 57). M'Crie
suggests that, although the Acts were concluded on the 10th of April,
the council may not have then closed (Life of Knox, 1855, p. 126, n.).]
[97] [While it is apparent from Knox's own narrative that his first
public sermon was delivered in the parish church of St Andrews (Laing's
Knox, i. 189), it is not quite so clear whether Rough addressed the call
to him in that church or in the chapel of the castle, though it rather
appears to have been in the former (Ibid., i. 186-188); and the precise
building in St Andrews in which he first celebrated the Lord's Supper
seems to me to be also uncertain (Ibid., i. 201).]
[98] Laing's Knox, i. 228.
[99] Ibid., i. 348, 349; vi. 25.
[100] [Many members of the university became Protestants. The twenty-one
men in St Andrews, whom the first General Assembly deemed qualified "for
ministreing and teaching," were with few exceptions professors, or
regents. For the number of the ecclesiastics who joined the congregation
at St Andrews in the early months of the Reformation, see _supra_, p.
13. In September, 1566, St Andrews was emphatically declared to be "the
most flourishing city as to divine and human learning in all Scotland"
(Laing's Knox, vi. 546).]
[101] Laing's Knox, vi. 78.